brooding
pronunciation
How to pronounce brooding in British English:
UK [ˈbruːdɪŋ]
How to pronounce brooding in American English:
US [ ˈbruːdɪŋ]
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- Noun:
- sitting on eggs so as to hatch them by the warmth of the body
- persistent morbid meditation on a problem
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- Adjective:
- persistently or morbidly thoughtful
Word Origin
- brooding (adj.)
- 1640s, "hovering, overhanging" (as a mother bird does her nest), from present participle of brood (v.); meaning "that dwells moodily" first attested 1818 (in "Frankenstein").
- brooding (n.)
- "action of incubating," c. 1400, verbal noun from brood (v.). Figuratively (of weather, etc.) from 1805; of mental fixations by 1873. Related: Broodingly.
Example
- 1. They were dark and brooding .
- 2. He was a brooding curmudgeon who thundered against industry , progress and the young science that sought to explain them .
- 3. Now the whitechapel art gallery is staging an exhibition-about-an-exhibition that looks at the origins of this love affair between the brooding colourist and the british .
- 4. I brood about my divorce , and all the pain of my marriage , and all the mistakes I made , and all the mistakes my husband made , and then ( and there 's no return from this dark topic ) I start brooding about david .
- 5. The hen is brooding eggs .